Gunnar's Daughter

<b>The first historical novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author of <i>Kristin Lavransdatter</i> <p/>A Penguin Classic</b> <p/>More than a decade before writing <i>Kristin Lavransdatter</i> the trilogy about fourteenth-century Norway that won her the Nobel Prize Sigrid Undset published <i>Gunnar's Daughter</i> a brief swiftly moving tale about a more violent period of her country's history the Saga Age. Set in Norway and Iceland at the beginning of the eleventh century <i>Gunnar's Daughter</i> is the story of the beautiful spoiled Vigdis Gunnarsdatter who is raped by the man she had wanted to love. A woman of courage and intelligence Vigdis is toughened by adversity. Alone she raises the child conceived in violence repeatedly defending her autonomy in a world governed by men. Alone she rebuilds her life and restores her family's honor--until an unremitting social code propels her to take the action that again destroys her happiness. <p/> First published in 1909 <i>Gunnar's Daughter</i> was in part a response to the rise of nationalism and Norway's search for a national identity in its Viking past. But unlike most of the Viking-inspired art of its period <i> Gunnar's Daughter</i> is not a historical romance. It is a skillful conversation between two historical moments about questions as troublesome in Undset's own time--and in ours--as they were in the Saga Age: rape and revenge civil and domestic violence troubled marriages and children made victims of their parents' problems.